A Day in the Life
by Oldach's Dream
Summary: Shawn wants a new pet. Maybe a new toy. He wants his Easy Bake Oven back and he wouldn’t say no to a private nurse, either. Mostly, though, Shawn just wants attention. Oneshot.


Summary: Shawn wants a new pet. Maybe a new toy. He wants his Easy Bake Oven back and he wouldn't say no to a private nurse, either. Mostly, though, Shawn just wants attention. Oneshot.

Disclaimer: I have a pineapple in my fridge. That's as close as I'm gonna get to owning them.

A/N: Mostly just a Shawn and Gus friendship fic, but there is a sprinkling of Shules. Nothing more than you'd see in the show, though. So read and enjoy. Don't forget to review. We like reviews.

A Day in the Life

"I think we should get a dog." Shawn announced that Tuesday afternoon in the _Psych_ office. There was a pile of rubber bands, straws and takeout containers on the side of his desk that, if you looked closely, detailed his boredom from the last twenty three minutes.

Gus was typing something on his computer, focusing intently on the screen, but he managed to pull himself away for long enough to say, "No." before starting back up again.

"A Rottweiler," Shawn went on, "One of those police trained ones that could rip off your arm."

"You're afraid of Rottweiler's," Gus said distractedly, still typing.

"Am not," The other man protested loudly, leaning back in his computer chair and crossing his hands over his stomach.

"Tenth grade. Mrs. Vanpooling's marijuana green house." Gus said dryly, eyes still not leaving his computer.

Shawn pouted, "Oh, yeah." It wasn't exactly fun to find out your next door neighbor – your _sixty year old _next door neighbor – was growing pot in her backyard. Especially when she wouldn't share. It was even less fun when your father the decorated police detective hears you and your best friend discussing it one night, misunderstands exactly what it was you were saying, and calls in a good two dozen cops for back up the next day.

Less fun still, is when those cops have big dogs – Rottweiler's- that snarl and bite and chase you around the yard and up a tree because, yeah, okay, maybe you smell like pot just a little.

"Okay," Shawn was willing to admit defeat on that one, "What about a small dog. One of those little yappy things that bark every time someone comes anywhere near them. We wouldn't need the security system anymore."

"We don't have a security system," Gus pointed out, still overwhelmingly consumed by whatever was on his computer screen.

"Perfect," Shawn threw his hands up in glee, "A little dog would save us from ever having to get one installed."

Gus was silent for a second, and Shawn almost thought he'd talked him into it; but, sure enough, after a few more seconds, he came back with, "Alison Jenkins."

Shawn's hope plummeted once again.

He'd dated Alison a few years back, before they'd started _Psych_ when Shawn was working at a bar just outside the city limits. He'd met her at work and everything had been going just fine – great sex – until around the two week mark when she'd started getting clingy and Shawn had started getting restless.

He'd asked to meet her at a park near the ocean, hoping the crowded area would stop her from throwing a fit or screaming or something else equally as girly and dramatic. She'd showed up with her bran spankin' new dog. A poodle mix that reminded him of Paris Hilton's famous pooches; tiny and held securely in Alison's arm.

He'd broken up with her, Alison had started crying and somehow the dog thought it would be amazingly appropriate to bite Shawn as hard as he could in retaliation. Alison hadn't even apologized for her pup's behavior as she'd stormed off back to her car.

Shawn had needed six stitches in his left index finger and had called Gus to come pick him up from the hospital after he'd charmed all the hot nurses with the story of how he'd been helping his nephew fend off a plus size bully. They'd swooned at his protectiveness and he'd gotten three phone numbers and two ample views of cleavage out of the deal.

Still, when he'd told Gus the real story, he'd finished it up – over his best friend's uproarious laughter – with, "And I swear I'll give up Pineapples before I ever go near one of those little bastards again."

And Shawn Spencer simply could not function without Pineapple.

"Fine," he pouted once more, "What about a Lab? You like Labs, right?"

"We don't have room for a big dog, Shawn." Gus pointed out and Shawn couldn't help but glance around the office. Yeah, maybe a big dog wouldn't get along so well in this tiny space. And, of course, small dogs were out.

"What about a monkey?" He moved on to plan B. "We could get a monkey, right?"

"They cost too much," Gus shot down plan B without so much as a glance in his direction, "Plus, you act too much like a monkey, anyway. People would get confused."

"How much is too much?" Shawn inquired lightly, now drumming his fingers on his desk, one leg swung over the arm of his chair.

"If you find one outside, we can keep it." Gus told him. "Other than that, I'm not taking care of a monkey. And no, finding one outside at a _zoo _doesn't count."

Shawn shut his mouth and stewed. It seemed like Gus didn't want him to have any fun at all. "What about a cat?" He suggested after a few minutes of silence. "Not a full grown little boy cat that doesn't like you. A tiny itty bitty kitten that we can train to…I don't know, color coordinate your socks or something. We'll name him…Mrs. Pickles."

Gus sighed, glanced away from his computer for a moment and opened his mouth to say something, but then that same computer went _beep _- apparently aggravated by the lack of attention it was getting - and Gus averted his gaze once again.

"No kittens. They claw everything."

"We could buy a scratching post." Shawn said brightly.

"I bought you a trampoline five years ago," Gus pointed out. "You still jump on the furniture. I think the same theory applies to cats and scratching posts."

"Whatever happened to that trampoline?" Shawn asked wistfully, having moved away from the idea of a kitten all together.

"Your landlord confiscated it after you had to go to the Emergency Room," Gus reminded him.

"Oh, yeah," he chuckled at the memory, "You know my dad still thinks I broke my leg on the motorcycle."

Gus looked up long enough to make one of his patented pained expressions before going back to whatever it was that was keeping him so occupied on that laptop. "How is him thinking you broke your leg on the bike better than him thinking you broke it after crashing into the ceiling and hitting the stove?"

"If I told him the truth I'd have to tell him I put a trampoline in the kitchen," Shawn explained.

"So?"

"Hi, have you met my father?"

Gus grumbled something incomprehensible and Shawn rotated his chair, grabbed a pencil off his deck and aimed towards the ceiling. He missed the other ten pencils that were already stuck up there by several inches, but decided in that moment that his new goal was to form a smiley face. Or maybe a Pineapple.

"Hey," he said suddenly, following his train of thought, "What ever happened to my Easy Bake Oven?"

"I sold it on eBay last month because we didn't have enough cash to make rent on the office," Gus said, as if that was an acceptable excuse.

"Dude, you couldn't have sold anything else?" Shawn exclaimed, outraged. "That Easy Bake Oven was sacred."

"I was gonna try to make a profit off your kidney on the black market," Gus deadpanned. "But you never sit still long enough for me to get it out."

"Huh," Shawn considered this. "Could have drugged me."

"Next time." And still, all his attention was focused solely on that little machine sitting on top of his desk.

"We should start a band," Shawn exclaimed. "We could call it, _The Pineapple Express. _I play drums, you could rock the acoustic guitar, and I bet if we bribed her a little, Jules would make one kickin' tambourine girl."

"_Pineapple Express _is the name of a movie coming out next month," Gus told him evenly, not even looking up to see Shawn's face fall.

"Well…" he clucked his tongue, "We're definitely going to see that."

"I'll clear my schedule."

"I got it!" Shawn sat up straight in his chair, letting his feet fall to the floor in excitement. "A nurse."

"I don't think you could handle two jobs," Gus told him, "Let alone going to nursing school."

"No, dude," he waved off that suggestion with a smirk. "We hire a nurse. For the office. Daily sponge baths."

"No."

"Why not?" Shawn insisted, "Its full proof."

"Male nurses."

Sullenly, he leaned back again. He recalled in great detail his little oversight last year with the modeling agency secretaries. And no, he wouldn't really like to repeat that blunder with someone who wields a sponge.

"They should make condoms that glow in the dark," Shawn mused, after leaning back with his eyes closed for several minutes.

"They do." Gus said, and Shawn didn't even bother acting surprised because he knew that too, of course.

"Have we ever seen a platypus?" Shawn inquired after several more minutes of no talking, the only steady stream of noise coming from Gus's fingers tap-tap-taping over the keyboard.

"At the zoo," he answered distractedly.

"Have we ever made a comic book?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure that we're not going over to your father's house, taking our old bikes out of the garage, and riding them with no handlebars." Which just proved that Gus was an excellent multi-tasker. He could rip apart Shawn's plans and keep doing whatever it was he was doing over there.

"Dude, what do you type? Like, ninety words a minute?" His eyes still weren't open, but the clicking of keys had yet to stop.

"Seventy-five." He grunted and Shawn realized that he really didn't care that much.

"Oh!" He got excited again and opened his eyes, "Let's go build a rocket ship out of 2-litter coke bottles like we did in elementary school." He suggested brightly.

"You almost got us both kicked out of school the day we made those rockets," Gus reminded, "You didn't follow the directions and both of ours exploded. The fire department showed up and Johnny Miller lost his eyebrows. And his mother threatened to sue both of our parents."

"Yeah, but she didn't." Shawn said meekly, recalling the incident with painful clarity.

"'Cause your dad made all her parking tickets disappear."

Shawn clucked his tongue a few times, cracked all his fingers, his neck, he stretched out his arms, rolled his shoulders around in a circle, tried to touch his tongue to his nose and played air guitar for a few minutes before speaking again.

"Let's get a hammock."

"Sure," Gus said easily, not looking up.

"Really?" Shawn grinned, excited.

"Yeah. We'll put it right where your desk is."

Shawn pouted once again. Yeah, so their office probably wasn't big enough for a hammock. Or a big dog. Could you blame a guy for trying?

He thought about whether or not a hammock would fit in his living room. Well, he decided, maybe if he moved the surfboard to the bedroom…

"Dude, when's the last time we went surfing?" He exclaimed, suddenly itching to get back onto the waves.

"We went up to the coast last summer," Gus recalled. "You hit the reef and got four stitches in your eyebrow."

Shawn ran his finger over the body part in question. "Oh, yeah. The scar's even still kinda there."

Gus grunted a response, still typing and staring and concentrating and…_working._ Shawn shuttered at the mere thought.

"I wonder if the chief has any cases for us," he said this more to himself than out loud, but still Gus responded.

"You called half an hour ago."

"You never know," Shawn shrugged, but stopped reaching for the phone despite his own words, "Something could have come up."

This time Gus didn't respond and Shawn's right hand was twitching just a little. He started humming the theme song to _Gulla Gulla Island _without really realizing what he was doing as he noticed with distain that the sun was already starting to go down outside.

"Who did you like better on _Charmed, _Shannen Doherty or Rose McGowan?" Shawn asked. Both of his feet were now hanging over the armrest of his chair, his head was angled to the side and he was using his desk for momentum as he spun around in circles.

"Shannen Doherty," Gus answered.

"Really?" Shawn _hmmphed _to himself and kept spinning slowly around and around. "Most people would disagree."

Gus didn't take the bait and Shawn kept spinning. "What about _Tremors_?" He asked, "Was the prequel overkill?"

"The third one was overkill," Gus snorted, pressed one button about twenty times – somewhat angrily – and went back to his normal typing.

"True," Shawn allowed. "Oh, so Jules was telling me about this awesome horror movie that her friend in Miami sent her a copy of. It's called _Teeth. _Guaranteed to scar us for life."

_Typing, typing, typing..._"What's it about?"

Shawn shrugged – not that Gus was looking at him or anything. "She wouldn't tell me. Just seemed pretty damn positive that it'd freak us out."

"Maybe you should Google it," Gus suggested. Without doubt an attempt to get him to be quiet for a while; but still, Shawn complied.

Several minutes later, Shawn had the _I just ate rotten Pineapple _expression plastered all over his face and even Gus stopped typing after glancing up for a moment. "Dude, what?"

Shawn made a few broken sounds and some meaningless hand gestures before squeaking out, "Jules is mean."

Gus looked enthralled enough and was soon clicking into Google himself - Shawn presumed, anyway, since that was the first time he'd seen him use the mouse all day – typed something short – like _Teeth – _and pressed _Enter_ – that button made a different sound than all the others.

Less than two minutes later Gus gasped loudly, opened his mouth in shock and raised his fist to cover it a moment later. "_Damn._" He gasped, lowering his fist and facing Shawn. "And Juliet suggested this?"

Shawn nodded meekly.

"What'd you do to piss her off?" Gus asked, shifting subconsciously in his chair, the same way that Shawn had.

"I don't know, dude," he shook his head. "I brought her Chinese takeout yesterday; maybe she didn't like her fortune."

Gus shook his head slowly back and forth, "Dude, I feel lightheaded."

"Deep breaths," Shawn coached, "It passes."

And so it did. Several minutes later found Gus shutting his laptop slowly and swiveling around to face Shawn. "So…" he started and casually ran a hand over his neatly pressed, perfectly professional collared shirt, "Wanna go grab some takeout?"

Shawn was out of his chair – well, standing on top of his chair for a few victory spins – mere moments later. "Dude, I thought you'd never ask!"

Gus rolled his eyes but stood up nonetheless, "Let me just grab my wallet." He disappeared for a moment into the front half of their office and Shawn plopped back down onto the chair and grinned.

Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he typed a quick message to _Jules. _

_You're mean, but that totally worked. It was even HIS idea to leave. Thanx. I was goin stir crazy_

He pressed _Send _and quickly shoved the phone back into his pocket and jumped out of his chair as Gus came back. "Ready?"

"And waiting." Shawn exclaimed, and wasted no time in shooting out the front door.

He ran in circles around Gus a few times as they started walking down the boardwalk. Then he jumped up onto a nearby bench and sprung off as far as he could, landed in front of his best friend and continued trotting the little circles.

Maybe Gus had been right about the whole monkey thing.

"You know," his friend began, "If you were bored in the office you could have just asked if I wanted to go out."

"Nah," Shawn shrugged casually, finally slowing down and walking in-step with Gus, "I know how much it bugs you when I want to go out when you're working."

"That's true," the other man licked his thumb and his pointer finger and used them to smooth out his eyebrows. "And that was big of you. To wait until _I _was ready to go out. I hate to say this, Shawn, but I think maybe you're growing up a little."

Shawn bit his lip to keep from grinning, and said as seriously as he could manage, "Maybe."

His phone jingled his _Incoming Text Message _tune as they were nearing the chicken teriyaki place and Shawn pulled it out of his pocket again, pressed a button and grinned.

The message from _Jules _was simply a semicolon and a capital letter d. Her text message smiley face made him smile wider which made Gus, in turn, ask, "Who's that from?"

"No one," Shawn was still grinning as he shut his phone and put it away once more. "Hey, after we eat, we should go see the Dark Knight movie," he began another train of thought, just as excitedly as he begins all his others, "It's supposed to be _awesome_."

"You know I'm up for that," Gus agrees easily and Shawn's still grinning widely when they bump fists as they enter the restaurant.

Half an hour later finds the two men eating and laughing and causing a general ruckus amongst the other patrons. Shawn cracked open his fortune cookie and popped part of the cookie into his mouth right away as he read the fortune.

Grinning, he sticks the slip of paper into his pocket and looks up in time to see Gus's raised eyebrows. "You're keeping it?"

"I think Jules might like this one a little better," he explains as they go back to their food and their in-depth discussion about the various Batman movies that had been made over the years; which ones were better, worse and how this new one would stand up in comparison.

Inside Shawn's pocket a little slip of paper reads; _Your original and creative ideas will greatly help out a friend in need. _

Because if that wasn't fate, then Shawn just didn't know what was.

**Fin**


End file.
